Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Edward Fitzgerald. 18091883697. Old Song
TIS a dull sight | |
To see the year dying, | |
When winter winds | |
Set the yellow wood sighing: | |
Sighing, O sighing! | 5 |
When such a time cometh | |
I do retire | |
Into an old room | |
Beside a bright fire: | |
O, pile a bright fire! | 10 |
And there I sit | |
Reading old things, | |
Of knights and lorn damsels, | |
While the wind sings— | |
O, drearily sings! | 15 |
I never look out | |
Nor attend to the blast; | |
For all to be seen | |
Is the leaves falling fast: | |
Falling, falling! | 20 |
But close at the hearth, | |
Like a cricket, sit I, | |
Reading of summer | |
And chivalry— | |
Gallant chivalry! | 25 |
Then with an old friend | |
I talk of our youth— | |
How ’twas gladsome, but often | |
Foolish, forsooth: | |
But gladsome, gladsome! | 30 |
Or, to get merry, | |
We sing some old rhyme | |
That made the wood ring again | |
In summer time— | |
Sweet summer time! | 35 |
Then go we smoking, | |
Silent and snug: | |
Naught passes between us, | |
Save a brown jug— | |
Sometimes! | 40 |
And sometimes a tear | |
Will rise in each eye, | |
Seeing the two old friends | |
So merrily— | |
So merrily! | 45 |
And ere to bed | |
Go we, go we, | |
Down on the ashes | |
We kneel on the knee, | |
Praying together! | 50 |
Thus, then, live I | |
Till, ‘mid all the gloom, | |
By Heaven! the bold sun | |
Is with me in the room | |
Shining, shining! | 55 |
Then the clouds part, | |
Swallows soaring between; | |
The spring is alive, | |
And the meadows are green! | |
I jump up like mad, | 60 |
Break the old pipe in twain, | |
And away to the meadows, | |
The meadows again! |